Description This reminds me of the abstract work of Adolph Gottlieb so I salute him with this photograph I produced by bending wire and spray paint. It turns out to have a very hopeful feeling about it.

Mary Gow, San FranciscoMember Since March 2012Artist Statement I believe art has healing power and recall these words:

"What I dream of is an art of balance, purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter. I want my work to be soothing, so that the exhausted, overworked and stressed spectator finds rest and calm in it.” -Henri Matisse, 1908

I'm drawn to the gestural lines and vibrant palette of the Fauvists (like Henri Matisse & Andre Derain), the chromatic intensity of the early work of Wassily Kandinsky, the mystery of Laszlo Maholy-Nagy's photograms, and the expressive grit of Vincent Van Gogh. Teachers who had the greatest impact on me were Patti Bellantoni at School of Visual Arts in NY, and Harvey Stein at the International Center of Photography.

Here's what some people have said about my work:

"Gow’s sense of design is particularly strong. Form and color are varied, and her placement of forms is fascinating. A lack of conventional beauty or prettiness also characterizes her work. While Impressionist painters such as Renoir, Van Gogh or Toulouse-Lautrec created their work to give visual pleasure, that isn’t the case with Gow’s art, which has a starkness that gives the pieces strength, as well as a feeling of directness — a sense of coming straight to the point without frills. The austerity also adds to the already startling quality of the pieces."-Murray Paskin, San Francisco Examiner; read the entire review at:http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/mary-gows-stark-affecting-abstractions-fascinate/Content?oid=2168905

“The colors in your abstract work are so vivid and alive – and then the black and white. Just lovely. Haunting. (Even the photographs tend towards the abstract: much tension there between a recognizable 'image' and our perception of the “purity” of lines and related spaces). It’s as if another consciousness were pulling at us as we look at the world.”– Jack Foley, Poet/Performer/Writer and Host of KPFA 94.1 FM’s “Cover to Cover” 3 PM (Pacific Time) on Wednesdays, in San Francisco

-"THANKS SO MUCH for this gorgeous splash of beauty on my wall! I came home and immediately on entering, it burst into my vision and would not let me go -- just as it did at your showing; and now i get to drink it in umpteen times a day."-Lisa Dollar, Founder of the Lysistrada Project